Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.
Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.
Hmm...this review will be awkward since I felt a total indifference towards this book.
Eh, I wasn't that entertained as I first thought I would.
Sure, it's a nice book. I laughed, I felt sad, I blushed whenever Noah does his Noah thing. It has some serious, meaningful messages. It's crude, realistic - I could totally understand where Noah and Echo had come from. Of course, at first I was uncomfortable by how much Noah pays attention to Echo's butt and cleavage but he is just a high school student after all. Furthermore, Noah does prove himself to be more than this hot stoner guy throughout the course of the story.
I adore the slow building of Noah and Echo's relationship. I thought it was cute and believable. But halfway into the book, I felt like this tug war between Noah and Echo and also the family drama llama goes on and on and on and on...
...and on and on and on - you get the idea.
And I failed to empathize anymore.
Sure, they are teenagers and teenagers makes bad decisions. The adults in this book didn't do any better either. That's why I thought this book was nice but I think I sort of grew tired with it along the way.
I also thought the dialogues are natural (even though I never been to a high school in the US so who am I to comment on that LOL!). The characters including the secondary ones also felt like real people. The ending has this amazing sense of closure to it.
Meh, I don't know. I was looking for a teary read so I must say I'm disappointed that Pushing the Limits didn't deliver it. Not the book fault probably, but there you have it, 3-stars from me.
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| 3 poker faces |
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3 comments:
Lol I just want to say that I love your ratings! The poker faces made me giggle :)
Thank you! I just started using this rating system recently. :)
This one wasn't my favorite either, but I appreciated the angle of teens who come from rough family situations, and the foster care aspect, which I think are needed in YA. I actually thought some of Noah's dialogue seemed stilted and odd at times; a little too cleaned up for the sake of a novel. I liked some of the nuance with Echo's mother, that went to a place I didn't expect, and I wish there had been a little more of that rather than all the focus on Noah. Overall, I think Simone Elkeles' Perfect Chemistry did this scenario a little better, but I think it's still a good pick for reluctant young readers.
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